Puzzling Yangon

Now that the writing process for our book is in full swing, I am dealing with some historical puzzles occasionally. Herewith two that I have shared with our Facebook readers recently. One is about a famous high school, the other about a beautiful yet dilapidated official building on Pansodan Street.

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Raglan Squire

We are making good progress with our architectural guide to Yangon. With all the coverage on pre-independence heritage architecture (most recently on the occasion of President Obama’s visit to Yangon), I thought that post-war architecture could use a little more airtime, e.g. these two beautiful representatives.

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Technical High School, Yangon (1956)

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FIESP, Sao Paulo

I went on a short trip to Sao Paulo some while ago, and this building on Paulista Avenue caught my attention. It is the headquarters of FIESP – the Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo or Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo.

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Chennai book store

Much time has passed without any update. I hope the blog will resume normal operations now that the move to Washington, D.C. is fully completed. In lieu of a proper travelogue from Chennai (where I spent time in August this year), I post this photo of a bookshop taken in the beautiful T Nagar neighborhood.

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Wall reflections

The 9th of November has passed by quickly, and with it the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a young East Berliner at the time, the event was of great importance to me, although the true extent would only reveal itself many years later.

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TV Tower on a foggy day

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